Thinking Allowed: Former kingdom of Portugal

Portugal is a relatively small country. When you look at a map it is dwarfed in size by its only neighbour - Spain. And yet, Portugal was a historical powerhouse: it is the oldest nation state in Europe (Lisbon is older than Rome) and had the longest lasting colonial empire (last colony relinquished in 1999). At its peak the Portuguese empire included territory in Europe, Africa, North America, South America, Asia and Oceania. So pretty much the entire planet. The Portuguese also started the slave trade. A point I intentionally didn’t discuss with my children as part of their schooling as it would have made Zadie cry off and on for the rest of the year. Suffice it to say that Portugal, though you would not guess by visiting today, was fiercer and more widespread than you ever imagined.

Jakob had to travel for work for a few weeks so the girls and I took the opportunity to do a small road trip into Portugal. The Portugal we visited felt nothing like an empire. The Portugal we visited had rugged deserted beaches, large cork forests (largest cork forest in the world), so many British retirees, the oldest olive tree we ever saw (3400 years), and sleepy little mountain towns.

It was a whirlwind of a rainy week but we got a pretty good sampler of what modern Portugal has to offer. Unsurprisingly, we all liked the secluded beaches around Lagos. I am sure they aren’t usually all so deserted it just turns out that not everyone wants to play at the beach on wet winter days. The kids all really enjoyed getting to drive out to the ‘end of the world.’ When the world was flat there had to be an end somewhere right? The trails hugging sheer cliffs near the end of the world made me nervous with a team of running wandering children.

Lisbon was our foray into the urban. We walked through cute hilly neighbourhoods and less cute dirty neighbourhoods. We walked for hours along the water and learned that there is a big difference between industrial and industrial chic. We were wowed by Jeronimos monastery and all agreed that the pasties de nata in Belem (Lisbon) were truly way way better than any others we ever tried. We used our leg muscles to the max in Sintra, where palaces littered the hillsides like sheep in a meadow. Guess back in the day anybody who was anybody had to have a palace in Sintra. Now I guess there are no longer droves of somebodies as all the palaces were museums, our favourite of which is surprisingly owned by a Japanese company?

We drove through the hills into more rugged and colder places to visit friends in the mountains. Of course, this was probably the children’s favourite part of Portugal where they were doted on by great people, taken for walks up to bouldered hillsides, fed until bursting, and encouraged to cuddle the affectionate donkeys, dogs, and cats to their hearts content.

The Nazare big waves competition happened the day we left Portugal. We all so desperately wanted to go, but the road through Spain was long. We opted instead for a night in a Spanish medieval old town not far from the Portuguese border, which turned out to be an apt place to end our foray into Portugal.

note: Aurora says more pictures is better - especially if I am not posting as often. As this blog is partly a future gift to my children I have taken note of her opinions.

A baby in Portugal

Very different than the La Herradura beach!

The wild Atlantic

Queen Tova - new self-appointed monarch of Portugal and maybe the world

This wishing well that fed into an elaborate cave system was our favourite - we all really wanted to know why the family that owned this palace decided a cave network was necessary